Who He Is
Assistant physician of the Berghof who gives fortnightly lectures to the patients, first on love as a pathogenic factor and on analysis, then on occultism, and who receives patients for analysis in a dim office in the basement. He appears from Hans Castorp's arrival; the lecture on love as a pathogenic factor, below, is from Chapter IV.
Oppressed love was not dead, no; it lived on, in the darkness, in the deepest secrecy, aspiring to its fulfillment; it broke the magic circle of chastity and reappeared, though in a metamorphosed form, very hard to recognize [...] In the form of illness. The symptom of illness is nothing but the disguised manifestation of the power of love; and every illness is only love transformed, Analysis
Trajectory
In Chapter IV: The Sense of Time, Hippe, and the Thermometer he gives the first lecture, "Love as a Pathogenic Factor," which Hans Castorp arrives at late, exhausted from the walk and with his clothes stained with blood, and which he attends with Clavdia Chauchat seated right in front of him. The thesis can be brought close to that of Sigmund Freud on repression, although the text does not name him.
The thesis brings the lecture close to Sigmund Freud's doctrine of repression, though the text does not name him: the thwarted desire does not disappear, it returns deformed.
At the end of the same lecture, he advertises analysis and invites the entire audience, arms open, to come to him.
It was clear that Dr. Krokowski, at the end of his lecture, made an intense propaganda campaign in favor of the dissection of souls, and invited everyone, with open arms, to come to him. Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, he said, though in other words., Analysis
In Chapter VI: Naphta, the Snow, and the Death of Joachim, after some weeks of conversations with Hans Castorp during the rest-cure rounds, it is Hans Castorp himself who knocks at the door of the analysis office, and Joachim Ziemssen, who sees him by chance, takes the fact as betrayal.
Joachim saw how the cousin disappeared into the twilight of Dr. Krokowski's analytical cave.
In Chapter VII: Peeperkorn, the Great Boredom, and the Thunder the lectures turn to occultism when the young Danish woman Elly Brand reveals mediumistic powers, and he conducts the sessions. In the session that Hans Castorp attends, it is he who turns off the ceiling light and lights the red lamps.
Dr. Krokowski took his seat, after having lit, with a single maneuver, the two red lamps, and having turned off, with another, the ceiling light.
When Joachim appears, he asks Hans Castorp to address the cousin; Hans Castorp stands up, turns on the light, demands the key from him, and leaves.
Hans Castorp neither questions the ghost nor agrees to continue the session:
Forgive me, he murmured to himself [...] Then his eyes overflowed with tears, and his response to Krokowski's request that he address the cousin is to stand up, turn on the ceiling light, and demand the key from him without saying anything more.
It is the only time, in the whole Elly Brand episode, that Hans Castorp interrupts an experiment on his own initiative, and the gesture of turning on the light repeats, in reverse, the same gesture of Krokowski at the start of each session: it is science disguised as mystery that turns the light off, it is true mourning, which needs no cup nor medium, that turns it back on.
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that pass through him are Illness, Science and Technology, and the Supernatural.
In the recorded moments, Krokowski leads and the scene noted is Hans Castorp's reaction: in IV, the lecture on love turned into illness comes right after the memory of Pribislav Hippe and with Madame Chauchat seated in front of him; in VI, it is Hans Castorp who goes down into the dimness of the office; in VII, the session ends with the gesture of Hans Castorp, who lights the ceiling light that Krokowski turned off.
Relationships
- Hans Castorp: listener at the first lecture, patient in analysis and participant in the sessions, to whom he asks to speak with the dead cousin.
- Joachim Ziemssen: who sees the cousin enter the analysis office, and the dead man who appears at Elly Brand's session.
- Clavdia Chauchat: present at the first lecture, seated right in front of Hans Castorp.
- Sigmund Freud: the doctrine of repression, to which the lecture of Chapter IV can be brought close.